Red vs Blue Episode 57, ‘The Storm’, has been posted for sponsors. This is the last episode of Season 3, and it’s rather large (8 and a half minutes, 70-80 mb or so depending on flavor). You’d think that some storylines would be cleared up, given that it’s the end of the season and all… but you’d be wrong. Great piece. Thanks to Caboose989 for the first heads-up.

There’s a somewhat off-topic column over at Slate from last week – it’s worthy of mention here because Halo 2 is used as an example of a game that leads people to expect more from their entertainment. (The column is a dialogue between Steven Johnson, who believes that TV and video games are causing people to become smarter, by having to follow more intricate storylines, and Dana Stevens, who thinks that the argument is absurd when applied to television, but works for video games.) Thanks, Cornballer.

In early March, MurderDog and friends submitted respawn times for Halo 2 maps; we posted a note about it here. Now, Typher has added this information for the 4 newly-released maps – you can find them at the bottom of the timing page.

No, I DIDN’T forget today’s One One Se7en – it’s still Monday, right? Geez. Good thing, too, cause it made me laugh.

A few days ago, I got an email from BeefySleet, who wanted to point out a video made by a friend of his, TXz Dymdez. I watched it, and was impressed; it was really well-done. I asked him to submit it to the Movie Peer Review Rating System, which had recently been tweaked after complaints of a slippage in quality – I felt that this would be a great first vid out of the gate, post-tweakage. Unfortunately, the movie failed – by the slimmest of margins (it received a rating of 74.75%, passing at the time was 75%). However, I’m releasing it anyway, because I think that it deserves recognition; I think the MPRRS reviewers are tired of montages and will fail pretty much ANYTHING submitted in montage format. (We’ll soon be releasing another failed-by-narrow-margin montage that would have passed at any other time in Halo’s history.) This one was (is) originally available on the Halo2Forum – you can find download links and commentary in this thread. We’re providing another pair of mirrors for the original WMP9 version (33 mb, mythica.org | bungie.org) as well as a pair of QuickTime mirrors (31.6 mb, bungie.org | mythica.org); as of now, these are the only QT mirrors. Enjoy – but realize that it’s possible that we may have reached the end of the golden age of montages.

Dennis Powers has posted the Season 2 Teaser Trailer for the Halo CE Chronicles; it’s available in both WMP9 and QuickTime formats from the downloads page. More maps, more story, blowing stuff up. (Well, not in the trailer. But soon.)

Phoenix_9286 posted another episode of Last Stand – and the forum post gives lots and lots of background about the strip. Sounds like a bunch of work!

Flashman has written up a rebuttal to the recent article at HaloDev about ‘ripping’ – his argument is that creative expression (and free speech) is being stifled by fear of infringement of intellectual property. I almost didn’t post this; we’ve had a pretty substantial email conversation this morning about the subject, and I was pretty sure at the outset that he had simply missed the point of the HaloDev article… but I was wrong; he understood it, but believes that once you release material into the world, you’re obligated to live with what the world does with it. (I STRONGLY disagree with this sentiment; I believe that the intellectual property owner should have final say about the use of their creation… but my disagreement shouldn’t stifle the discussion itself; it’s a blog, there are built-in tools for making your views known.) Go read – then let him know what you think!

Twelve new pieces submitted to the Fan Fiction section over the weekend… poetry, chapters, standalone pieces. Go read!

While the silence from Bungie about the future of the Halo franchise continues, Narcogen explores another possibility – read about it at Rampancy.net.

Today’s Waffle Hut has a Halo 3 mention… I’m not sure I understand it, but there you are. Thanks, Tricky.

There’s a nice article on glitching, and the problems it’s causing for Microsoft, over at Wired.com. Nothing really new for the hardcore Halo fan, but it’s a nice introduction to the concept for the general public, and it contains great quotes from Ducain and Dark Helmet (and prominent links to High Impact Halo). Go read!

I woke up this morning to an absurdly-full mailbox. Yeah, there was a lot of spam… but there were also hundreds (literally) of notes about the Gamespot article which recounts that Time Magazine quotes Bill Gates confirming Halo 3, to be released at or near the release of Sony’s Playstation 3 next year. Bungie STILL hasn’t weighed in on this one – but it’s a little silly to say ‘even Bill GATES has no say in release dates’. We’re still gonna keep you apprised of the OFFICIAL announcement, when it eventually comes… but please – we’ve seen this article, and the dozens of articles like it, all over the web; we’ve now front-paged the news… so you can stop sending us the link.

A new site, VideoTuts.net, has opened its doors; in the words of one of its admins, “Our goal is to push the gaming and CG industry further, and make it easy and accessible to everyone.” (Well, mostly everyone – not Mac users, but everyone else.) They’ve released 20 new video tutorials on the use of 3ds Max and Photoshop; these range from large to ginormous, and most of the new ones (all of them?) are encoded with the TechSmith codec. (TechSmith is a Windows-only screen recorder; if you’re on a Mac, you’re completely out of luck. On the other hand, 3ds Max doesn’t run on a Mac, either, so…) This codec, for Windows, can be downloaded from a link in their video FAQ. If you’re looking for step-by-step tutorials showing you how to perform specific tasks related to game development using 3ds Max or Photoshop… check this stuff out!

Hehe – the Zelda Ocarina of Time mod being created for Halo CE is progressing nicely, as can be seen in the screenshots in this thread on the Gearbox forums. Still a ways from being done, but what’s there is quite impressive! Thanks, MasterGrief.

Stuntmutt has updated his weblog with some submitted Guest strips for One One Se7en – for those who didn’t remember (or never realized), the main One One Se7en section no longer accepts guest or archive submissions, and hasn’t for a year or so. If you have a strip you want made public, mail it to Stuntmutt – he’ll add it to this blog.

In the last two days, more than 1300 copies of the Going Nowhere Fast Highlight reel (first posted here) have been downloaded via BitTorrent – close to 200 gigabytes worth of downloads. That should be enough that the direct download demand is back within reachable limits. A few sites have put up the high-res copies we released via BT – 640×480, 130+ mb; if you want one of these, and BitTorrent isn’t an option, you can grab them here (some have already been posted, but I’m re-summarizing):

• WMP9 Hi-Res: Furious Gamers | Furious Angels | Spartans.bungie.org
• QuickTime Hi-Res: Furious Gamers | Furious Angels | Spartans.bungie.org

For those who don’t want the high-res version, and would rather save 50 mb on the download, there are also 480×360 versions available (84-87 mb, depending on flavor):

• WMP9 version: mythica.org | bungie.org | spartans.bungie.org
• QuickTime version: bungie.org | mythica.org | spartans.bungie.org

There are more mirrors coming (both high and medium res).

There’s a long article over at HaloDev, discussing the ethics of ‘ripping’ – removing content directly from one game (in its original form, without degradation) for insertion into another game (or the same game, in a different context). It’s well-written, and has some decent arguments for why intellectual property should be respected. Go read. (Thanks to several folks for pointing this out – looks like SRG was first.)

And the medium evolves. Motherstooth wrote to say that the search for Miranda is over – he’s chosen Jenel Glover, of Fremont CA. He posted a short vid (WMP9 or QT) that includes the test line he had her read. (There were 17 applicants for the part… I’m thinking that if someone’s looking for a ‘niche’ Halo 2 site, building a system that could put potential voice talent in touch with machinima projects that need it is a tool that’s just screaming to be created.)